International Energy Agency finds cost-neutral route to major CO2 cuts

Existing technology can put us on a path to 2° rise by 2020.

Yesterday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report in which it urges the adoption of four approaches to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In announcing the report the IEA noted that, at the earliest, the next international treaty won't even be finalized before 2015 (and its implementation won't start until 2020). But in the intervening years, we're likely to build infrastructure and continue emissions that will make the goals of that agreement nearly impossible to reach. In the interim, the IEA suggests steps that are needed to keep the planet on a path that would limit emissions to 2°C.

The report comes immediately in the wake of the first recordings of carbon dioxide levels that exceed 400 parts per million at Mauna Loa, far from any sites of industrial emissions. These levels haven't been seen in millions of years and, if current emissions trends continue, we're expected to reach temperatures we've not seen in equally long: between 3.6°C and 5.3°C warmer than the preindustrial era, according to the IEA. And, as the World Bank recently noted, that sort of rise would radically reshape our world. So the IEA is sold on the goal of limiting future temperature rises to 2°C.

Unfortunately, energy-related emissions went up by 1.4 percent last year to 31.6 Gigatons. If we wait to 2015 to finalize plans to keep future temperature rises to 2°C, the IEA estimates we'll need to spend $5 trillion to get back on track.

In contrast, the IEA estimates that we can stay on track by spending $1.5 trillion in the years between now and 2020. If spent according to the IEA's new four-step plan, we'll save just as much money as we spend due to more efficient use of energy. The IEA focused on technologies that are already on the market and are in active use in some countries, meaning that there are no barriers other than cost and scaling.

The plan

One of the steps is something the IEA has been arguing for a while: given that there is a finite supply of fossil fuels and that burning them creates problems, it makes no sense to actively encourage their use. Despite this, fossil fuel is heavily subsidized in many countries. The IEA has consistently called for these subsidies to be phased out; one of its four points is to simply accelerate the phasing out.

While also on the subject of waste, the IEA would like to see oil and gas producers do more to capture methane that is currently allowed to escape into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and is eventually converted to CO2 in the atmosphere; capturing more of it will account for 18 percent of the savings.

In the US, the expansion of renewables and natural gas has led to a significant decline in the use of coal, which has led to a corresponding drop in carbon emissions (coal is the least efficient fossil fuel in terms of energy per emissions); China's emissions growth is slowing for similar reasons. The IEA would like to see that happen globally. If we limit the construction and use of the least efficient coal plants for the rest of the decade, it could account for 20 percent of the IEA's goals.

But the biggest step we can take is simple efficiency. Building or retrofitting more efficient buildings, industry, and transportation could account for nearly half the emission changes needed for the IEA's plan. And this is where most of the money for the plan comes from; efficiency measures can usually save a significant amount on energy expenses, often with time windows of less than a decade. These savings are required to offset the cost of mothballing some of the coal plants before the end of their expected lifespans.

These savings will, of course, exact a cost somewhere, primarily in the energy industries. If the IEA's plan were adopted, coal consumption would obviously drop and some fossil fuel reserves that are currently slated for development will not be needed as quickly as expected. As a bit of a sop to the energy industry, the IEA notes that the problems caused by climate change—water shortages, severe storms, sea level rise—will exact a cost on the industry's infrastructure as well.

Overall, the IEA's plan seems like a solid one. But the group has been calling for many of these steps for a number of years and responses have been slow. There's definitely an element of the "tragedy of the commons" here. Although it's appealing in general to think that these efficiency measures could allow finite reserves of fossil fuels to last decades longer than they would otherwise, the countries and companies relying on the income from developing them are unlikely to be happy to go along with the plan.

ok, so the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions is livestock used for feeding. this article doesn't mention that once, and obviously no solution.

second. how do they plan on just letting subsidies on fossil fuels run out when civilians are already making less money than they did in the 60s (for example). i live in america, and most people i know drive a lot just to get to work. this would be a huge huge drain of money on them. there needs to be a better solution for this.

personally, i have stopped eating meat and starting riding my bike to work (7 mi/day). but i realize that not everyone can do this.

second. how do they plan on just letting subsidies on fossil fuels run out when civilians are already making less money than they did in the 60s (for example). i live in america, and most people i know drive a lot just to get to work. this would be a huge huge drain of money on them. there needs to be a better solution for this.

i don't know if this is explicitly spelled out in the report, but dramatically improved fuel efficiency. new CAFE standards stipulate a 54.5 mpg across manufacturer's vehicles by 2025 (though how CAFE is computed is kinda complicated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_ ... el_Economy), that in itself would go a long way to reducing or mitigating the impact of higher gas prices (which are inevitable anyway, regardless of your politics--aka pro- or anti-science stance--on climate change) in addition to reducing automobile emissions.

ok, so the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions is livestock used for feeding. this article doesn't mention that once, and obviously no solution.

the solution would be to convince people to eat less meat

IIRC americans have actually reduced per-capita meat consumption in recent years, but as india and china get richer their meat consumption is going up to 90s-era US levels. If ~3 billion people ate as much meat (albeit not as much of that being beef in india) as americans did, the climate impact would be catastrophic. but i'm pretty sure you try to tell anyone in china that and they'll be using the same argument as they do about trying to shift to renewables: why should they prematurely restrict themselves/bear a special burden when americans and other people in the west got to indulge themselves for so long?

Are they actually suggesting anything to replace fossil fuels? Otherwise, its message is about as effective as an episode of Captain Planet.

They are suggesting that existing efficiency technology means we don't have to use as much fossil fuel as we currently are. There's only slight displacement of coal, a process that is already happening in the US.

ok, so the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions is livestock used for feeding. this article doesn't mention that once, and obviously no solution.

second. how do they plan on just letting subsidies on fossil fuels run out when civilians are already making less money than they did in the 60s (for example). i live in america, and most people i know drive a lot just to get to work. this would be a huge huge drain of money on them. there needs to be a better solution for this.

personally, i have stopped eating meat and starting riding my bike to work (7 mi/day). but i realize that not everyone can do this.

A gradual and well-documented decrease in subsidies or increase in energy taxes would let everyone gradually adjust to the new reality and plan their lives accordingly. If you know that gasoline will legally be $4.50/gallon, then buying a house 60 miles from work and an SUV to commute with looks like a worse idea.

But if it's fluctuating all over the place (one effect of effective conservation efforts would be to lower demand, which would then lower prices), people might lock themselves into high energy lifestyles (distant commutes in big cars) during a cheap swing, then suffer during an expensive swing. The good-ish news is that oil has been at $100/barrel for many years now, so hopefully people are adapting by requiring shorter commutes and buying more efficient cars.

ok, so the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions is livestock used for feeding. this article doesn't mention that once, and obviously no solution.

second. how do they plan on just letting subsidies on fossil fuels run out when civilians are already making less money than they did in the 60s (for example). i live in america, and most people i know drive a lot just to get to work. this would be a huge huge drain of money on them. there needs to be a better solution for this.

personally, i have stopped eating meat and starting riding my bike to work (7 mi/day). but i realize that not everyone can do this.

A gradual and well-documented decrease in subsidies or increase in energy taxes would let everyone gradually adjust to the new reality and plan their lives accordingly. If you know that gasoline will legally be $4.50/gallon, then buying a house 60 miles from work and an SUV to commute with looks like a worse idea.

But if it's fluctuating all over the place (one effect of effective conservation efforts would be to lower demand, which would then lower prices), people might lock themselves into high energy lifestyles (distant commutes in big cars) during a cheap swing, then suffer during an expensive swing. The good-ish news is that oil has been at $100/barrel for many years now, so hopefully people are adapting by requiring shorter commutes and buying more efficient cars.

People in the US are so pampered, its hilarious "Oh gosh we can't ride the bus, it would take an extra 20 minutes", Well, it would be 5 minutes if you subsidized the bus half as much as gasoline. Also subsidies are generally regressive. This is because the costs of the environmental degredation and climate change are born almost exclusively by the poor. Lower taxes and lower climate problems and the main winners will be average people and poor people. Why do you think the Fascist Republican Party is so adamantly against changing anything?

Are they actually suggesting anything to replace fossil fuels? Otherwise, its message is about as effective as an episode of Captain Planet.

"Guys! We should, like, totally stop polluting and the problem would be over!"

Simply bringing the cost of fossil fuels into line with their environmental impact will take care of the most significant part of the problem.

The current cheap energy addiction is the largest hurdle to implementing real and effective reform.

Raise the price of gasoline to $12 per gallon and suddenly 50MPG+ cars, bicycles, and mass transit are on everyone's must have list.

Double the price of coal and natural gas and suddenly wind and solar are super cost effective.

Of course reforms like this would have to be taken with holistic trade reform to ensure industry doesn't simply attempt to leave for the cheapest energy sites.

We've already seen what happens when you increase sharply the price of fossil fuels: the companies that use them will use just as much as before, but substantially increase the cost of their goods to pass on the bill to their customers.

It does little to address the environment and makes ordinary people's lives worse off than before.

People in the US are so pampered, its hilarious "Oh gosh we can't ride the bus, it would take an extra 20 minutes",

I can see you've never tried to take a bus here.

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Well, it would be 5 minutes if you subsidized the bus half as much as gasoline.

All the local buses are run by the municipalities or the state.

well, busses are inefficient so i don't know what the "I can see you've never tried to take a bus here." and while some busses are run by the municipalities or the state (i don't know what state runs a bus system, but I'll play ball), it ignores the point that busses (and other forms of mass transit) don't get nearly the kind of investment/subsidies that cars and roads do, either directly (highway-building grants, which does benefit busses a bit nonetheless) or indirectly (general urban development policies that lead towards sprawling or low-density developments).

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This is because the costs of the environmental degredation and climate change are born almost exclusively by the poor.

Do the rich where you come from have an independent air supply and an independent food supply?

actually, the poor do bear an excessive cost of environmental degradation and climate change. google "environmental justice." (or even just wikipedia it, though the wikipedia article is limited to the US and not international environmental justice issues)

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Why do you think the Fascist Republican Party is so adamantly against changing anything?

Everything that has happened in the US since happened because both parties supported it.

sorry, i wasn't aware that the dems pushed for backing out of the kyoto protocol. or the dems who killed cap and trade or carbon tax regulation. or the dems who opposed moving towards CFLs and other more efficient light sources. not that i'm saying the dems have a spotless record on environmental issues, but if you think that both parties are the same on this, you haven't been paying attention.

People in the US are so pampered, its hilarious "Oh gosh we can't ride the bus, it would take an extra 20 minutes",

I can see you've never tried to take a bus here.

Buses use roads, do they not? And there's metric assload of roads out there, correct? So, why not put more buses on the roads? It's not like you need to create special routes for them (like you have to do with trains and subway), they can use the existing routes.

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This is because the costs of the environmental degredation and climate change are born almost exclusively by the poor.

Do the rich where you come from have an independent air supply and an independent food supply?

Rich can afford the food, poor can not. What happens if the price of basic dishes (say, wheat, rice, potatoes, corn) tripled? Your average rich person could easily afford that, whereas poor people simply could not afford to eat anymore.

We've already seen what happens when you increase sharply the price of fossil fuels: the companies that use them will use just as much as before, but substantially increase the cost of their goods to pass on the bill to their customers.

It does little to address the environment and makes ordinary people's lives worse off than before.

Like I said, there are holistic issues to be dealt with.

There has to be a lot of societal structure change to really make the reforms needed work. Yes, product costs will increase marginally, but moreover what has to happen is a return to decentralization and more localization to reduce the energy concentration for production, increase the number of production jobs, and simultaneously reduce the costs involved in product logistics.

The basic problem, though, is that when it comes to fossil fuels, everyone must use less, and there is no getting around that.

Some things can be substituted satisfactorily and some can't, but there's going to have to be massive change of expectations in a lot of areas.

Less of the AC turned down to 65 and everyone dressing like it's the middle of winter in July and more of everyone wearing comfortable clothing along with much more reasonable cooling would help, too.

According to the temperature records of the last decade, if this trend continues aren't we already well on our way to essentially 0 temperature change until 2020?

Good thing we don't do that. Who would be stupid enough to extrapolate future temperatures from a mere ten years of data? Especially when there are short-term forcings and cycles which can make an arbitrary choice of decade predict either a precipitous drop in temperatures back to the Ice Age or a startling rocket-sled to Venus-like conditions.

Yes, I'm glad we're all smart enough to realize that we can't just cherry-pick a single decade and say that this is what temperatures are going to do going forward. Good thing we all agree on this, and see it as our duty to correct any unfortunate rubes who don't know as much about climate as us instead of spreading the same misinformation around. Right?

Rich can afford the food, poor can not. What happens if the price of basic dishes (say, wheat, rice, potatoes, corn) tripled? Your average rich person could easily afford that, whereas poor people simply could not afford to eat anymore.

This is why I've always been in favor of a progressive carbon tax. Basically tax carbon emissions but then refund these tax dollars to every American, in essence repaying them for the damage done to the commons. This would be progrsesive in that it would help shield the poor from price increases due to pricing carbon into the market because poor and rich alike would get the same amount via their carbon tax refund. This would create large incentives to emit less carbon, because the less you use carbon-intensive energy sources, either directly or indirectly, the more of your carbon tax rebate you get to keep.

According to the temperature records of the last decade, if this trend continues aren't we already well on our way to essentially 0 temperature change until 2020?

Good thing we don't do that. Who would be stupid enough to extrapolate future temperatures from a mere ten years of data? Especially when there are short-term forcings and cycles which can make an arbitrary choice of decade predict either a precipitous drop in temperatures back to the Ice Age or a startling rocket-sled to Venus-like conditions.

Yes, I'm glad we're all smart enough to realize that we can't just cherry-pick a single decade and say that this is what temperatures are going to do going forward. Good thing we all agree on this, and see it as our duty to correct any unfortunate rubes who don't know as much about climate as us instead of spreading the same misinformation around. Right?

I have studied climate data gathered from northern Canada during the last 3 months and conclude that by 2020 the temperature will have increased by approximately 300 degrees Celsius.

Rich can afford the food, poor can not. What happens if the price of basic dishes (say, wheat, rice, potatoes, corn) tripled? Your average rich person could easily afford that, whereas poor people simply could not afford to eat anymore.

This is why I've always been in favor of a progressive carbon tax. Basically tax carbon emissions but then refund these tax dollars to every American, in essence repaying them for the damage done to the commons. This would be progrsesive in that it would help shield the poor from price increases due to pricing carbon into the market because poor and rich alike would get the same amount via their carbon tax refund. This would create large incentives to emit less carbon, because the less you use carbon-intensive energy sources, either directly or indirectly, the more of your carbon tax rebate you get to keep.

James Hansen proposed something similar: a revenue-neutral Fee and Dividend system with the carbon price increasing steadily and predictably.

[quote=&quot;[url=http&#58;//arstechnica&#46;com/civis/viewtopic&#46;php?p=24679503#p24679503]Janne[/url]&quot;][quote=&quot;[url=http&#58;//arstechnica&#46;com/civis/viewtopic&#46;php?p=24679473#p24679473]Traciatim[/url]&quot;][quote=&quot;[url=http&#58;//arstechnica&#46;com/civis/viewtopic&#46;php?p=24678901#p24678901]SgtCupCake[/url]&quot;][quote=&quot;[url=http&#58;//arstechnica&#46;com/civis/viewtopic&#46;php?p=24678683#p24678683]Traciatim[/url]&quot;]According to the temperature records of the last decade, if this trend continues aren't we already well on our way to essentially 0 temperature change until 2020?

Wait . . . since when are the 1990's in the last decade? I guess you have to cheat to win these days. Seems you guys do actually take your queues from climate 'scientists'.

The comment you are trying to discredit is that if temperature remains like it has the last decade then we are looking at essentially 0 change until 2020 as opposed to the 2 degrees C claimed in the article. My comments stands and you guys are idiots, as per usual.

We actually do this. Unsurprisingly, it tends to produce hockey stick graphs. Regardless of the type of proxy you use or the statistical methods, so not it's not just Mann et al.'s fault. You know what that indicates? We are in a period of anomalously climbing temperatures.

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4 Billion years?

Because 'climate' isn't meaningfully defined on such scales unless you want to talk about how "Uranus is extremely cold, has been almost since the start and will continue to be so forever." Not exactly relevant to the concerns we have over what's going on with Earth today; bit of a red herring.

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Oh right . . . all of it includes swings as large and as steep as today.

Except that they don't. Also, simply looking at records and merely identifying large temperature swings tells you nothing about what causes them. Invoking past climate changes that look kinda sorta like today's (if you squint, and allow for x10 longer periods of time) is like saying that forest fires happened before people were around, therefore no forest fires are caused by people today.

3.6-5 degrees Celsius. The kind of temperature change the IEA is considering over the next 90 years alone is the same as the difference between the climate you were born in and the climate that saw a mile of ice covering Chicago. And the climate didn't snap out of the Ice Age nearly so fast as this change we're facing.

Are they actually suggesting anything to replace fossil fuels? Otherwise, its message is about as effective as an episode of Captain Planet.

They are suggesting that existing efficiency technology means we don't have to use as much fossil fuel as we currently are. There's only slight displacement of coal, a process that is already happening in the US.

You're a little behind the times. Natural gas prices bottomed out and have started to rise again. Likewise the percentage of coal for electricity generation bottomed out and has started to rise.

Still, the longer term trend for coal is downward, but to be accurate at the moment you'd have to say that coal is on the upward slope.

ok, so the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions is livestock used for feeding. this article doesn't mention that once, and obviously no solution.

second. how do they plan on just letting subsidies on fossil fuels run out when civilians are already making less money than they did in the 60s (for example). i live in america, and most people i know drive a lot just to get to work. this would be a huge huge drain of money on them. there needs to be a better solution for this.

personally, i have stopped eating meat and starting riding my bike to work (7 mi/day). but i realize that not everyone can do this.

This plan, like most of the others before it, refuses to look at the reality of the situation. Those who cobbled it together sound very naive. The live stock issue will be resolved soon enough when vat grown meat is perfected. They are already close to it. Once vat grown meat is widely available there will no longer be any need to raise animals for food. It will be far cheaper and safer to feed people the animal protein and the nutrients only found in it to everyone. Guilt free even. Your stopping the consumption of meat accomplishes nothing. You will make a real difference by supporting this research.

10, 20 and 30 year time scales? Seriously. I bought a Prius, so the world is safe too?

You people are narcissistic beyond all comprehension. The thought that less than multi-millenial changes in climate has any meaning shows nothing but one's own vanity.

and even then, we often have only a tiny handful of proxies. If you were measuring as little as we have for past temperatures (at ground level only), the analysis wouldn't be worth the paper is was printed on in any other scientific endvour. Climate "science" is anything but.

You wouldn't launch a paper plane, let alone a rocket to space, with the miniscule amount of actual, hard data that climate computer modelers use for their cute little activities.

What's sad is they are ignoring the studies which show that in spite of the steady rise in atmospheric CO2 global temps stopped rising over 15 years ago. This study shows CFC's not CO2 has been behind the recent warming:

For somebody who supposedly is so skeptical, you sure do rush in to bite on the hackneyed pseudoscience with gusto while denouncing the vast majority of published research. That's not skepticism, that's cognitive bias.

What's sad is they are ignoring the studies which show that in spite of the steady rise in atmospheric CO2 global temps stopped rising over 15 years ago. This study shows CFC's not CO2 has been behind the recent warming:

So, for those of you who want a summary of the link:The author posits that CFCs drive climate change through a greenhouse effect.Somehow (it's not at all explained how) CO2's greenhouse properties do not affect the climate.The entire argument rests on correlations that, as Wheels pointed out via links, don't even hold up all that well.

Now, i've seen a fair bit of unjustified optimism about ideas before, but this comes across as positively magical thinking, with things arranged in an attempt to fit a preordained conclusion.

People in the US are so pampered, its hilarious "Oh gosh we can't ride the bus, it would take an extra 20 minutes",

I can see you've never tried to take a bus here.

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Well, it would be 5 minutes if you subsidized the bus half as much as gasoline.

All the local buses are run by the municipalities or the state.

well, busses are inefficient so i don't know what the "I can see you've never tried to take a bus here."

The point is that it takes a lot of extra time. I took the bus to the university one winter, it was a grueling ordeal. The weather was bad and there was a bridge with no crosswalk I had to cross (in slush and snow) to get to the first stop (perhaps 2-3 miles), then after a long cold ride, I had to transfer to another bus, and one again to get to downtown where I then got to walk to the university. It easily took 4 hours a day, and the exposure to the elements is not something I'd recommend for the elderly or young.

And my wife occasionally takes the bus to the mall. She spends a lot of time waiting for the bus. While she can read the schedules, they keep changing then, and sometimes the routes with no posted notice or schedule updates. I have some issues with safety if she takes the kids.

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and while some busses are run by the municipalities or the state (i don't know what state runs a bus system, but I'll play ball),

No, he said that they should be subsidized more, they can't possibly be subsidized more, they are paid for exclusively by tax dollars (minus fares I guess). Here's my local bus authority, the VTA.

-- Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is an independent special district that-- provides sustainable, accessible, community-focused transportation options that are innovative,-- environmentally responsible, and promote the vitality of our region. VTA provides bus, light rail,-- and paratransit services, as well as participates as a funding partner in regional rail service-- including Caltrain, Capital Corridor, and the Altamont Corridor Express.

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it ignores the point that busses (and other forms of mass transit) don't get nearly the kind of investment/subsidies that cars and roads do, either directly (highway-building grants, which does benefit busses a bit nonetheless) or indirectly (general urban development policies that lead towards sprawling or low-density developments).

How so? They are funded the same way from the same sources.

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This is because the costs of the environmental degredation and climate change are born almost exclusively by the poor.

Do the rich where you come from have an independent air supply and an independent food supply?

actually, the poor do bear an excessive cost of environmental degradation and climate change. google "environmental justice." (or even just wikipedia it, though the wikipedia article is limited to the US and not international environmental justice issues)

-- Within four years of first becoming infested, the ash trees died -- over 100 million since-- the plague began. In some cases, their death has an immediate impact, as they fall on-- cars, houses, and people. In the long term, their disappearance means parks and -- neighborhoods, once tree-lined, are now bare.

-- Something else, less readily apparent, may have happened as well. When the U.S. -- Forest Service looked at mortality rates in counties affected by the emerald ash borer,-- they found increased mortality rates. Specifically, more people were dying of cardiovascular-- and lower respiratory tract illness -- the first and third most common causes of death in-- the U.S. As the infestation took over in each of these places, the connection to poor-- health strengthened.

If you think being rich gives you an exemption, please explain?

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Why do you think the Fascist Republican Party is so adamantly against changing anything?

Everything that has happened in the US since happened because both parties supported it.

sorry, i wasn't aware that the dems pushed for backing out of the kyoto protocol. or the dems who killed cap and trade or carbon tax regulation. or the dems who opposed moving towards CFLs and other more efficient light sources. not that i'm saying the dems have a spotless record on environmental issues, but if you think that both parties are the same on this, you haven't been paying attention.

You read that backwards, everything that happened (aka PASSED) did so because both parties voted for it. Either party can block things (and both parties have blocked things), but that is not what I referred to.

People in the US are so pampered, its hilarious "Oh gosh we can't ride the bus, it would take an extra 20 minutes",

I can see you've never tried to take a bus here.

Buses use roads, do they not?

Last time I looked.

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And there's metric assload of roads out there, correct? So, why not put more buses on the roads? It's not like you need to create special routes for them (like you have to do with trains and subway), they can use the existing routes.

For reasons I've not seen explained they've done the exact opposite locally, Buses used to run every half hour, now every hour. And they've cut some stops from the routes as well. But in reality I think you don't need a crystal ball to divine that the root cause is California's budget problems. I don't think this will be fixed any time real soon.

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This is because the costs of the environmental degredation and climate change are born almost exclusively by the poor.

Do the rich where you come from have an independent air supply and an independent food supply?

Rich can afford the food, poor can not.

Anyone who cannot afford or obtain food is dead. No, really, are you trying to say something else?

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What happens if the price of basic dishes (say, wheat, rice, potatoes, corn) tripled? Your average rich person could easily afford that, whereas poor people simply could not afford to eat anymore.

But that's what you guys want, there's a poster salivating right now over the prospect of $12 gas.

-- The current cheap energy addiction is the largest hurdle to implementing real and effective reform.

-- Raise the price of gasoline to $12 per gallon and suddenly 50MPG+ cars, bicycles, and mass-- transit are on everyone's must have list.

And let's not forget the ever-popular carbon tax, which if large enough will probably push anyone living on the margins over the edge and place many living near the margins on the brink of disaster.

There is a disconnect between on one hand desiring to price carbon based energy out of affordability and concern from the poor.